Business Expansions and Contractions - Long Island Region
May 2016

Business Expansions and Openings

Entourage Commerce LLC , a Queens-based distributor of health and beauty products has decided to move to Islandia (Suffolk County) instead of New Jersey, thanks to help from tax breaks from the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency. The business expects to add 175 people to its payroll of 250 by 2019. Records show employees earn, on average, $26,000 per year, excluding medical and retirement benefits.

The developers for the long-awaited $1 billion mixed-use Garvies Point project in Glen Cove (Nassau County) have scheduled a kickoff event for May 18. Split into two phases, the project will eventually bring 555 rental apartments, 555 for-sale condos, about 75,000 square feet of retail and office space and 22 acres of waterfront esplanades and parks to the site formerly occupied by heavy industry and junkyards.

Amazon.com Inc. has agreed to lease a 161,360-square-foot Bethpage (Nassau County) facility to use as part of its vast distribution infrastructure. An Amazon spokesman said that “the building will be used to support Amazon’s customer fulfillment network” but provided no further details.

Premier Care Industries Inc., a Hauppauge-based (Suffolk County) manufacturer of baby wipes, diapers and feminine hygiene products has received approval for a $3 million state loan to purchase a building in Hauppauge to consolidate four buildings into two. Premier has exceeded its 2014 promise to create 23 jobs in return for $300,000 in state tax credits over a number of years. It now has 80 full-time employees and plans to hire 35 more in five years with the building consolidation. Records show that Premier employees, on average, earn $32,700, excluding medical and retirement benefits.

Teledata Communications Inc., an Islandia-based (Suffolk County) developer of loan origination software, is expanding its headquarters, leasing an additional 6,000 square feet of space to facilitate future hiring. The company, founded in 1982 as a manufacturer of telex terminals, develops cloud-hosted software that automates consumer lending for small banks, credit unions and other finance companies. Teledata has more than doubled its employment since 2012, growing from 35 employees to 75 workers today, and anticipates needing the extra space to accommodate more developers in the future.

County Executive Steve Bellone said he will nearly triple the size of this year’s Suffolk police class to 175, the second largest in the department’s history, to offset what officials expect to be a multiyear spike in retirement over the next three years. Officials say the new class of 60 officers would start in the fall and be ready by next summer. The 2016 budget had estimated there would be 136 retirements this year, up from 90 in 2015 and a historic average of about 80 annually. The number of sworn police staff now stands at 2,390, which is 392 below its authorized strength of 2,782.

IntraLogic Solutions Inc., a Massapequa-based (Nassau County) video surveillance business that helps to secure local schools and parks, has received a tax break package from the Nassau County Industrial Development Agency to move from one building in Massapequa to another in an expansion project. In 2013, when the company first sought Nassau’s help, it said it would add 13 jobs to its payroll of 32 over 15 years.

ERwin Inc., a Tampa, Florida, software company recently sold by CA Technologies Inc. to a private equity firm, plans to open executive offices on Long Island. ERwin’s new chief executive, Adam Famularo, said he is scouting Melville (Suffolk County) and other locations for an executive headquarters. ERwin currently has about 25 employees in Tampa plus developers in China and India. Famularo expects to have a head count of about 100 within the next year, including five to 10 in the Long Island headquarters.

New York Community Bank opened a Roslyn Savings Bank branch in Wyandanch (Suffolk County) on April 22, the first free-standing bank to exist in the hamlet in about 20 years.

Dick’s Sporting Goods is hiring to fill about 100 full-time and part-time positions for a new store opening in June in Valley Stream (Nassau County). Applicants can go to dickssportinggoods.jobs.

Target plans to open two new, smaller format stores in Freeport and Elmont (Nassau County) this October. The Freeport Target will replace a Stop & Shop that announced its closure in January. The Elmont Target will replace an OfficeMax.

ShopRite opened a renovated supermarket in late-April in a former Pathmark in New Hyde Park (Nassau County), a location it bought from the bankrupt A&P chain. The store will employ close to 300 full- and part-time workers.

High-end supermarket chain Whole Foods Market will open a Commack (Suffolk County) store in 2019, its fourth on Long Island. Whole Foods will be taking over a portion of the space currently occupied by a King Kullen. The lease of the King Kullen Commack store expires in September 2017. The store has 78 full-time and part-time employees. The new Whole Foods will employ 150 to 200 employees.

Greenlawn Farms, a newly renovated supermarket, opened on April 28 at a shopping center in Greenlawn (Suffolk County), replacing a former Waldbaum’s.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey, filed in July for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and reorganization.

All 51 Waldbaum’s and Pathmark stores operated by A&P on Long Island were closed by November. Thirty were purchased by supermarket chains, 20 were turned over to their landlords and one — the Greenlawn store — was sold to a real estate company.

Business Contractions and Closings

Quantum Medical Imaging, an imaging device manufacturer, will close its Ronkonkoma (Suffolk County) facility in November and the 83 jobs there will move to Rochester and China, according to the facility’s parent company and a state regulatory filing. Layoffs are scheduled to begin July 29.

The Doshi STEM Institute, Long Island’s first science-focused high school, will close at the end of the school year in June because of a $1 million budget gap and stagnant enrollment. The Doshi STEM Institute was founded in 2013 in an attempt to create a competitive, specialized science high school that would pair students with expert educators and working scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The students were given the opportunity to pursue a challenging course of study in engineering, research, robotics, math, physics, chemistry and biology.